White Dragon Stories

Family

As ruler of a country one barely had any time for private matters. The little bit of free time one had was used for one's family, but even that little time was not enough to really call it "family activities" or "family time". Most of the time Hakuryuu only had time to eat lunch and dinner with his wife and their children. It hurt Hakuryuu to not be able to spend more time with his family. He had grown up with a father, who was always busy with battles and meetings, and two older brothers, who both were part of the army and therefore were always on the way as well. He could barely remember his own father and most things he knew about him, were stories told by others about a man called emperor Ren Hakutoku. The same applied to his brothers Hakuyuu and Hakuren to a certain extent. Although those two always tried to spend as much of their free time with their younger siblings Hakuryuu and Hakuei, who was Hakuryuu's older and only sister, there were only a few memories left with them. Their death was the most present memory of them. Hakuryuu still had nightmares of the fire incident and he probably would never get rid of them.
However, there was a memory of his family left that he loved to remember, despite it happened at a time were everything was already nothing but play pretend. For him it had been real back then. The smiles, the laughs, the love and the happiness! It had felt so real! Knowing that he it was not, pained him so much, yet he still liked this memory, since it was one of the few in which his whole family had spent a day together. It was also one of the few memories in which his father was his father and not the emperor.

Not far from Rakushou was a small forest with a lake. It was a nice spot to relax for a bit and think about the world. As a child and teenager he had liked to spend some time here. Unfortunately, he hardly went there. When he had been a child, he hadn't been allowed to go outside without a guard and as a teenager he had other problems, like an insane mother, who tried to destroy the whole world, for example. Now as an adult he had no time as well. An emperor had a lot of duties to fulfill and most issues he had to deal with could not be postponed. His family understood this, but he could see how sad they were, whenever he had to decline any offer of family time. He wanted nothing more than to be a part of his children's life. Differently than him, they should remember their father as their father and not just as emperor, with whom they happened to be related with. That was the reason why he tried to at least keep up with simple tasks like teaching his kids how to cook, fight, ride a horse and so on. While the last two things were relatively easy to incorporate into his daily schedule, cooking was harder. In the end, the evenings, shortly before the kids had to go to bed, where the only time, he could really spend time with his children. Fortunately, his kids were well-mannered and sometimes they just would sit through a meeting with him, just to be near him, even the youngest ones would keep quiet. But this also reminded him of how terrible he was as a father and how much his children needed him. His wife often told him that he worried too much and that he did more than most other fathers would have ever done. This was a fact his feeling did not care about and therefore he still felt horrible, despite his wife's and even his children's reassurance that he was a great father. He knew very well that he worried too much about everything, but what should he do? One could not control their own feelings and this was annoying in itself! Because then he was annoyed by being annoyed of being too worried, which annoyed him again. A vicious circle! Only broken when he was with his loved ones, who always had a nice story to tell about their day.

When the first opportunity arose, Hakuryuu took it without thinking much about it. A day off from work was something seldom! He had worked like an idiot to assure that the most important work was done and that the rest could be done by his servants. The only thing that may be able to stop him from going on a picnic with his family, was a war or doomsday. However, there was no reason for any of this to happen in the next few days! So, why bother with thinking about it – yes, for once he did not worry himself with unlikely obstacles.
His wife and his children were all so excited, when he announced his plans to them. Sadly, his children had not left Rakushou until now and so it would be the first journey outside of the city.
A whole day only with his family! That sounded so great and somewhat surreal! Hakuryuu was happy and excited himself. His wife together with their oldest daughter would make the food – Hakuryuu had offered his help, but was rejected and even threated to be thrown out, if he dared to enter the kitchen! Unbelievable!
Well, it was always nice to eat something made by his wife or his daughter. Both were excellent cooks and very creative. Hopefully they would not forget to make the meals well-balanced and not only sweet – those two were such sweet tooths and they were not the only ones. On the other hand, they had well-balanced meals at lunch and dinner, so there was no reason to fear that this may not be the case for the picnic. And here he was worrying about unnecessary again. Life would be too easy without unnecessary worries. And just thinking about a life without unnecessary worries: how horrible! Hakuryuu would not complaint! Preferably a boring life than one with so many worries. He was a simple man, with simple needs and wishes! But one could not have everything, right? And his life was not so bad. All his loved ones were in good health, he was in good health, the empire was doing well – consequently the majority of his people were doing well too – and no sign of trouble. What could a ruler wish for more?